


Should Have

by highfunctioningenius



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, referenced temporary character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 18:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3539099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highfunctioningenius/pseuds/highfunctioningenius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer Reid doesn't take Emily Prentiss' figurative resurrection. This is the real reason why he said those things to JJ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Should Have

He said it because he still had the glass vial he purchased the night Emily “died”.

It still rested in a hidden pocket of his messenger bag. It had not left his side since that night, unlike the members of his team he had trusted to stay.

He said it because he needed her to hurt like she had hurt him, and he needed to know he made the right choice in not using. But there was no way JJ would have kept Prentiss’ life a secret if he had emptied that vial into his veins; if he had shown up at her house strung out like he had wanted to. She would have been destroyed, but Spencer would get more relief from it than just the weight of secrecy off his shoulders, and the numbing blood flow slowing his brain.  If he had used, essentially Emily would come back to life. There was no delusion there, in the secret hope he had every time he pulled out that vial.

“This won’t bring her back” was the logical reminder that allowed his fingers to co-operate long enough to place the vial back in its pocket.

He was wrong.

Every time he chose not to use, every time he refused the relief that bottle promised, he was wrong.

That bottle, those chemicals, he had made the wrong choice every time, because dilaudid would have brought Emily back, and Spencer never wished he had relapsed more than then, in the moment of that realization.

So he said those disgusting words to JJ but she still didn’t see more than just him looking for someone to blame. She was half right of course, but he didn’t blame her for how much he wanted to relapse. He wasn’t angry about that. He was angry at himself because he didn’t relapse, and he needed someone to blame for his mistakes, for not using when using would have brought Emily back.

He should have taken the dilaudid.

He shouldn’t have chosen not to each damn time.

He wished someone could see the reason for his statement.

Because he was so close, so often, and he had chosen not to.

He couldn’t help but hate himself for that now.

 

_“What if I had started taking dilaudid again?”_

_“You didn’t.”_

_“Yeah well I thought about it.”_


End file.
